Zoostorm 2-3305 Versatile PC review

A solid all-rounder, but look out for those design compromis

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Our Verdict

A decent enough system for the price, but has nothing to make it stand out

For

250GB hard drive

Standalone graphics card

Against

Anonymous looks

Stingy warranty

Only Vista Home Basic

While some PC manufacturers try to get your attention with an eye-catching case, PC Next Day is happy with a conventional, black and silver tower system. It still looks acceptable and generally seems a practical choice, our only minor reservation being that you'll need a screwdriver before you can gain access to your system's innards.

If you did open up the Zoostorm 2-3305 Versatile PC, you'd immediately spot the Nvidia 7600GS 256MB graphics card. It's a capable budget product that just about gives you the capability to play 3D games, if you're willing to turn all the resolution and quality settings down to the minimum.

It also handles the Vista Aero visual effects, although you're not going to notice that in this case because the system only comes with Vista Home Basic Edition: Aero's not included.

The spirit of compromise continues with the AOC TFT monitor. It's colourful and produces a crisp, clear image, but it's also only a 17-inch display and that means the native 1280 x 1024 may be a little high if you're short-sighted.

We were hoping that we'd get a bonus elsewhere and sure enough the Pentium D 925 processor isn't a bad performer at this price, while the 250GB hard drive is decent. You get a couple of Genius stereo speakers, too: nothing special, but at this price point we're grateful for anything.

Unfortunately, we did have some minor issues with this system. The optical drive is "only" a 16x, as opposed to an 18x model and the warranty is a relatively stingy one-year return to base only. So, while the Zoostorm 2-3305 Versatile PC is good for its price, it's not quite good enough to be an unqualified success.